{"id":805,"date":"2008-02-12T01:32:06","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T06:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=805"},"modified":"2018-08-14T23:40:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T03:40:50","slug":"15616-%c2%a0-darius-m-rejali-torture-modernity-%e2%80%94-self-society-and-state-in-modern-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=805","title":{"rendered":"15616.&nbsp;(Darius M. Rejali) Torture <span class=\"amp\">&amp;<\/span> Modernity \u2014 Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I looked for\u00adward to read\u00ading this book, which had been rec\u00adom\u00admended to me. But it proved a dis\u00adap\u00adpoint\u00adment. Occa\u00adsion\u00adally, it laps\u00ades into com\u00admon sense for a page or two, but for the most part it\u2019s an exer\u00adcise in regur\u00adgi\u00adtat\u00ading the tedious ortho\u00addox\u00adies of our time. Plen\u00adty of Fou\u00adcault. Plen\u00adty of neb\u00adu\u00adlous and de-human\u00adized pas\u00adsages like \u201c<em>Polit\u00adi\u00adcal vio\u00adlence may have lacked sys\u00adtem\u00adatic\u00adity because juris\u00addic\u00adtions con\u00adflicted, but it retained an over\u00adall coher\u00adence through its tech\u00adniques. These tech\u00adniques involved the inscrip\u00adtion of signs, and it is there\u00adfore not sur\u00adpris\u00ading that the vio\u00adlence about penal rit\u00adu\u00adals involved the mis\u00adrep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion of signs\u2026.The brig\u00adand in this instance used pun\u00adish\u00adments as a tech\u00adnique or rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion. He did not oblit\u00ader\u00adate the sys\u00adtem of rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtions; he mere\u00adly play\u00adfully changed what the signs meant.<\/em>\u201d That is how the author choos\u00ades to describe some\u00adbody hav\u00ading nails ham\u00admered into his feet. We learn that \u201c<em>the encar\u00adcer\u00adated become sub\u00adject to a hermeneu\u00adtics of sus\u00adpi\u00adcion<\/em>\u201d, and so&nbsp;on.<!--more--><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This kind of pedan\u00adtic triv\u00adi\u00adal\u00adiza\u00adtion is taught to under\u00adgrad\u00adu\u00adates in our uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adties, who are made to pro\u00adduce mil\u00adlions of pages of jar\u00adgon-filled, syrupy exegi\u00adsis applied to any\u00adthing and every\u00adthing: the soci\u00adol\u00adogy of fash\u00adion run\u00adway shows, the \u201cdis\u00adcourse\u201d of air\u00adport wait\u00ading lounges, the bak\u00ading of blue\u00adberry muffins, etc. Apply\u00ading this kind of stuff to a sub\u00adject like tor\u00adture mere\u00adly wastes our time, when we need to be doing some\u00adthing to stop tor\u00adture. And for heaven\u2019s sake, when will aca\u00add\u00ade\u00admic nin\u00adnies stop quot\u00ading Marx? Marx is utter\u00adly worth\u00adless garbage, of no intel\u00adlec\u00adtual val\u00adue what\u00adso\u00adever. The same goes for Noam Chom\u00adsky. When will these nerds ever <em>grow up<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I\u2019m per\u00adhaps a bit too harsh. There are some use\u00adful sec\u00adtions in the book. The author is sin\u00adcere, and does try to tack\u00adle a dif\u00adfi\u00adcult sub\u00adject. No doubt he feels real com\u00adpas\u00adsion for the suf\u00adfer\u00adings of tor\u00adture vic\u00adtims, and cares about the fate of the peo\u00adple of Iran. But this stuff is not help\u00ading. It\u2019s the fault of our claus\u00adtro\u00adpho\u00adbic and back\u00adward-look\u00ading uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adties, which take intel\u00adli\u00adgent schol\u00adars, turn them into tire\u00adsome drones, and set them to play\u00ading inane word&nbsp;games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">What remains con\u00adspic\u00adu\u00adously absent from such schol\u00adar\u00adship is any under\u00adstand\u00ading of human beings and their motives. On the first page, Rejani con\u00adsid\u00aders the pos\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adity that tor\u00adtur\u00aders \u201c<em>do what they do vol\u00adun\u00adtar\u00adily and with full knowl\u00adedge of their sit\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion, and they enjoy a feel\u00ading of excess pow\u00ader when they destroy anoth\u00ader human being<\/em>\u201d \u2015 and instant\u00adly rejects it as inad\u00admis\u00adsi\u00adble, unprov\u00adable, and unin\u00adter\u00adest\u00ading. That\u2019s the last we hear of <em>that <\/em>pos\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adity. From then on, tor\u00adtur\u00aders are mere\u00adly play\u00ading out abstract soci\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal pat\u00adterns and exud\u00ading sym\u00adbols. This is humbug.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I looked for\u00adward to read\u00ading this book, which had been rec\u00adom\u00admended to me. But it proved a dis\u00adap\u00adpoint\u00adment. Occa\u00adsion\u00adally, it laps\u00ades into com\u00admon sense for a page or two, but for the most part it\u2019s an exer\u00adcise in regur\u00adgi\u00adtat\u00ading&nbsp;the&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=805\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bs-reading-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8690,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/8690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}